Entrepreneurship Series: Lessons learnt from Mr. Ricky Wong on service level and HR.

I was inspired to write again by Rubio Chan after reading his blog on Linkedin. Time really flies so fast and two months has passed since I last wrote my blog. This time it's not about me. I would like to share lessons learnt from Mr. Ricky Wong's lectures with HKUMBA the past two Saturdays. I was one of the HKUMBA students sitting eagerly to learn from Mr. Ricky Wong's lecture about 18 months ago in Professor Yuen's modules. All seemed like yesterday and I still recalled I asked a question about the service level and customer's complaining about the delay in deliveries by HKTV mall. Some other brilliant students asked about the focus market for HKTVmall not servicing elderlies market at that time.

Fast forwarding to hearing the lecture sharing by Mr. Ricky Wong today. The issues with delivery is no longer a problem as HKTVmall has the biggest own fleet of delivery vans and also aim to keep on improving their services by committing to a shorter turnaround delivery time this year. As with the elderlies market, they have created a Lite version apps catering specifically for the elderlies market and even as dedicate to the level to use the son's and daughter's credit cards for payment as most elderlies may not even have credit cards.

What can we say about Mr. Ricky Wong as an entrepreneur?

Apart from knowing that he is extremely hardworking. He is committed to putting his customers first.

I personally absorbed a lot from his people management skills. One thing Mr. Wong mentioned about leadership is that " YOU CANNOT MOTIVATE THOSE WHO DO NOT WISH TO BE MOTIVATED."

Within a corporate world, it is more acceptable to make mistakes for wrong hires. But for startups, sometimes one wrong hire can destroy the path of a startup and it can be fatal! To avoid situations like this, it is important that decision makers make quick decisions to handle the staff's morale or if things cannot get better, there needs to be sacrifices.

I was most inspired by Mr. Wong's saying, " WE ARE A BUSINESS, WE ARE NOT DOING CHARITY." This has got my vibes going and assisted in managing the exit of bad potatoes.

Especially in a startup, we really can't afford to have those who do not perform and startups need to move much quicker than usual corporates to stay in the game.

Every single day is a battlefield and if you do not have a team of warriors together with you, the failure rate is higher. We only maintain the best of the best